


Farewell to Hopes and Fears

by orphan_account



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene, Yuletide, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from <i>The Silver Chair</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Farewell to Hopes and Fears

It was a burst of Dwarf laughter that woke Eustace, though it was the smell of supper that pulled him from his blankets. He was sore and bruised from the stones of Underworld over which their party had passed. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and looked round the cave. Pole lay asleep nearby with her hair strewn across her pillow. Eustace thought for a moment of waking her, but thought better of it when he noticed a Dwarf pulling hot jacket potatoes from the fire.

"Hi, you," he said as he stumbled across the floor, "have you got a spare?"

The Dwarf grinned widely at him and put a piping hot potato on a plate with a ladle of beans over the top, then handed the plate to Eustace.

Eustace looked about for a place to sit. The crowd had thinned a bit since he had fallen asleep. On the other side of the fire, Eustace spotted a low bench that was almost empty. Prince Rilian sat on the other end with his eyes closed. Eustace supposed that Rilian was as tired as he and Jill had been. He sat, trying not to disturb the Prince, and began to eat his beans and potato. Various Beasts were making sleeping places for themselves - Eustace noticed three Centaurs pawing at straw, and a Bear circling a few times before flumping onto the ground and draping its paw over its nose - and he could hear Puddleglum talking though he couldn't see the Wiggle.

"No, you needn't trouble yourself, I can do without a blanket. At least there's a roof here, although snow can be warm enough if one is buried deep enough in it. Perhaps there's no room for me near the fire after all. Don't shift yourself just to be kind, there's no call for that."

His mutterings grew softer and then stopped altogether. Eustace smiled to himself as he scraped the last of the beans from his plate.

"There is surely more food at the hearth," a mild voice said. "Dwarfs are not often caught without."

Eustace looked up in surprise, his spoon clattering against the thick white china. 

The Prince smiled at him from his spot at the end of the bench. "Is there not food aplenty in your world, Son of Adam?"

"More than there used to be," Eustace said, "back during the War when I was small." He set his plate down beside him, and was only a bit startled when a Squirrel whisked it away. "That food we had at your table down below, it was familiar, but I don't think it was real. I've been hungry since a bit before the Witch appeared."

"It is certainly possible," Rilian said thoughtfully. "I cannot vow that any of it was real beyond what she chose to show as true." He leaned forward to the fire, tugging his fur-lined cloak around his shoulders. After a long time gazing into the coals, he looked back to Eustace. "In the Lady's lair, you said you had sailed with my father to the isle of Ramandu."

Eustace nodded. "And beyond, though without your father," he said quietly.

"Yes, he stayed behind to court my mother and watch my grandfather sing the dawn," Rilian said with a soft chuckle. "But forgive me, Eustace. My father is an old man - near death, they are saying - and though I myself am only twenty-one, you appear to me as young as I was before I was lost in the woods. How can this be so?" As he waited for Eustace to answer, Rilian slid down the bench so that they could speak quietly without waking any of the sleepers around them.

Eustace shifted to meet Rilian, leaning almost into him to hear the other man's soft words. "How many years have passed since your parents met?"

"Fifty, almost exactly," Rilian said.

Eustace made a small noise of surprise. "And yet, in my world, it's only been a few months."

Rilian stared at him, leaning closer and placing a hand on Eustace's leg. "A few months? Then you are much the same age now that you were when you met my father first, though he was only twenty-six. By Narnia's reckoning, you are by far my senior." He shook his head. "I believe you, friend Eustace, though it is strange indeed."

"Imagine how strange it is for me," Eustace said. "The last I saw Caspian, he was about as much older than me as you are now, and yet he is now at the end of his life." They both stared into the coals of the fire for a good while. Eustace watched Rilian from the corner of his eye. Though he was as fair-haired as Caspian had been, Eustace saw lines and strain in his face, likely etched in his years of captivity. He thought that Rilian wore his experiences boldly, and that the tightness and angles of his cheeks - where Caspian's cheeks were round as apples - gave him a handsomeness that his father lacked.

"In your land," Rilian said after some time, "you are a celebrated warrior, though young?"

Eustace nearly coughed from stifling his laugh. "Hardly! I'm a schoolboy - awful place, and I finally realized how awful because of Caspian and Reepicheep and Aslan." He shuddered, noticing that Rilian's hand was still on his leg, but enjoying the warmth it gave. "He'd had every right to pitch me over the edge of the Dawn Treader."

"He spoke of you all, when I was a child. He told tales of the brave Reepicheep the Mouse, and how King Edmund the Just and Queen Lucy the Valiant from time immemorial were found afloat in the sea with their companion - that would have been you," Rilian chuckled.

"Did he mention how difficult I found it all? I was a tremendous beast." Eustace frowned. "No, a Beast is a noble thing in Narnia."

"He said that you had changed on the voyage more than he," Rilian said quietly. "I know about the dragon, and your trip to Aslan's Country, and that it was not your choice to visit in the first place. But you are here now, by your own will, and Narnia welcomes you." Rilian was still for a bit. "I welcome you, as a friend of my father's, and, I hope, as a friend of my own."

"I should like that," Eustace said, and placed his hand over Rilian's. It was rather like shaking hands sideways, he thought, and quite nice. Experiment House had banned handshaking on the grounds that it perpetuated old-fashioned notions of manners and social expectations.

Rilian smiled and turned his hand upward to grip Eustace's. "Friend. I haven't had one of those in some time."

A sudden flutter of wings caught their attention. "Tu-whoo! Tu-whoo! I declare, can it be you?"

"Glimfeather!" Eustace scrambled to his feet, dropping Rilian's hand before he realized he wasn't quite sure whether one could hug an Owl. "We survived, and we found the lost Prince, and here he is!"

As Rilian rose, Glimfeather bent forward and swept his wing in a formal bow. "True, true! I bring Prince Rilian word from the harbor. Your father's ship arrives in Cair Paravel this morning. Aslan sent him back with word of your arrival, and you are requested to ride immediately to meet him."

Rilian returned the Owl's bow, though not quite as deeply. "My deepest thanks, Master Glimfeather. You have discharged your mission. I pray you, rest a while before joining us in Cair Paravel in the morning." As Glimfeather flew a short bit away, settling himself atop a grandfather clock and preening his feathers, Rilian turned and took Eustace's hands in his own. "I must make haste, friend Eustace. There will be ceremony and old acquaintances to greet, and my father to welcome home. I had thought to view him only on his funeral bier." He smiled sadly.

"Go," Eustace said, gripping his hands tightly. "Pole and I will follow in the morning, somehow. I should like to see Caspian once again myself."

"And you shall," Rilian said. "Once the rites are discharged and we are left to ourselves again, I hope that you will seek me out. I should like to know you better, my friend." He lifted their hands chest-high, bowing to press his forehead against the backs of Eustace's fingers, then slowly released his grip. "Will you come to the stables with me?"

"Of course," Eustace said. He followed as Rilian moved quickly around the glowing coals and out the door, skirting the building until he found the stables. The stable door was open, the warm light spilling out onto the snow. Eustace shivered as he waited just inside the shadows.

Rilian went into the stables and came out almost as swiftly. "The Dwarfs are harnessing my horse already." He frowned. "You're shaking. I've brought you out without a cloak." Suddenly, one side of Rilian's fur-lined cloak flew around Eustace and he found himself pulled against Rilian's broad chest. "Warm yourself a moment before I ride," Rilian said quietly.

Eustace nodded, feeling his shivers subside as the warmth of both Rilian and fur seeped into him from all sides. "I hope you make good time," he said once his teeth stopped chattering, "and I hope that you find your father in good spirits to see you again."

"As do I." Rilian pulled him a bit closer. "We shall not ride as fast as Owls fly, of course, but our hooves will ring off the cobblestones nonetheless."

"It would not do," Eustace said, looking up at Rilian with a crooked smile, "to endanger yourself on the day you reclaim your place as Narnia's heir."

"No," Rilian said quietly. "Nor on the day when I have found a friend unhoped for." He looked at Eustace for a moment, then bent his head a bit more and brushed his lips across Eustace's once and then again, lingering the second time until Eustace parted his lips slightly and returned the kiss.

They stood in the shadowed night for a moment longer, until the gruff chatter within the stables moved toward them along with the snorting of ponies. "I must go," Rilian said. He released Eustace, pressing his lips once more to Eustace's forehead. "Go back where it is warm. I will see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Eustace echoed quietly as Rilian mounted the first horse out of the stable. Beginning to shiver again, Eustace went back into the room filled with sleeping Beasts and humans. He could hear the jingle of bridles and reins outside, and the quiet stamp of hooves which escalated into a steady pace as the horses rode away, toward Cair Paravel.

Eustace looked about and found Pole, asleep in a nest of blankets, and Puddleglum not far from her. He dropped to his knees in the space between them and slithered into his own pile of rugs. As he looked for sleep, he thought of the young Caspian, smiling as he looked across the Dawn Treader's prow, and the young Rilian, fierce and proud as he watched the snake-Witch writhe to her death. "Aslan protect them both," he thought to himself, and drifted into a doze as he imagined walking along the parapets of Cair Paravel, arm in arm with his friend Rilian, in search of something neither of them quite knew how to name.


End file.
